Més Que Una Empresa: How did Klopal end up developing software together with FC Barcelona?

CoPlays & FC Barcelona

In October 2018 most Finnish medias reported about an astonishing development: CoPlays, a Finnish startup that develops coaching platforms for team sports, had a new client – FC Barcelona. FC Barcelona is one of the most valuable and well known brands within team sports globally.

As a matter of fact CoPlays is the first ever Scandinavian company that has been given the honor to work with Barça Innovation Hub. Barça Innovation Hub’s goal is to ensure that FC Barcelona is at the forefront of sport related technology development. It does tell something about the unit’s importance that in a recent interview with the Times, FC Barcelona’s president, Josep Maria Bartomeu, named Barça Innovation Hub the most important project of the club.

So, what does Klopal have to do with the sports technology company CoPlays or FC Barcelona? Actually quite a lot...

CoPlays is a textbook example of a company that Klopal believed in right from the start.

CoPlays’s and Klopal’s collaboration began when CoPlays founders introduced their extremely barebones application demo to Klopal’s team. As a matter of fact Klopal believed in the idea so much that it partnered with CoPlays right form the start. Klopal has been CoPlays’s technology partner throughout the company’s history.

In practise Klopal’s software experts have been responsible for all the steps of the digital platform development from early conceptualization all the way to maintenance. Collaboration between Klopal and CoPlays has been effortless and effective.

"Klopal's role in CoPlays development has obviously been extremely important. The incredible flexibility and very high expertise level of Klopal's developers, coupled with an open and honest atmosphere, have created the best possible foundation for fruitful collaboration."

Markus Kauppinen, CEO, CoPlays Oy

The intensive collaboration with the sports technology company CoPlays means that in Klopal’s daily work our engineers are interacting continuously with FC Barcelona’s software developers.

This is an exhilarating collaboration also for our developers. It’s really exciting to get a chance to work with such a high profile team as FC Barcelona in a long term. Several of our team members have for example already been working in La Masia (FC Barcelona’s legendary and extremely secure training center). It feels surreal to get a chance to work in the same premises with Barça’s representative team,

says Sebastian Haapahovi about his company’s collaboration with the iconic Catalonian club.

What CoPlays?

CoPlaysis a platform designed to boost team sport coaching. It enables clubs to create exercise banks according to their training methodologies. Thanks to this, the whole club’s coaching becomes more unified and new coaches can easily adapt to the club’s training culture. CoPlays application works with tablets, mobile phones and computers.